Email is one of the biggest time sinks we all have. It's easy to either ignore a message completely, or to spend hours catching up on every single one. Technology blogger Dbuntinx's solution was to create a smart inbox that behaves in sort of a Schrödinger state and only shows unread email.

Dbuntinx uses Apple Mail's Smart Inbox feature (most email clients have something similar) so that only unread emails are visible to him and everything else is hidden. This means two rules must be met: the emails must be in the inbox, and unread. So, once you read a message, it disappears from the smart inbox. Dbuntix explains:

Once you start reading a message in this Smart Unread Inbox, it's actually not part of it anymore. It's in this sort of Schrödinger state, which only exists as long as you keep the e-mail open. So you have to act upon it, otherwise it will disappear forever into the mists that are the cloud.

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Setting this up in Apple Mail is pretty simple:

Click the + sign in the bottom left corner and select, "New Smart Mailbox."

For the first rule, select, "Message is in Mailbox" and select your inbox.

Click the plus sign to add another rule.

Select "Message is Unread" for the second rule, and click ok.

When you're done setting up your smart mailbox, hide the sidebar in Mail so you only see what's in the smart inbox. When you read an email, it disappears from that mailbox, so it's up to you to reply to it right away, or let it disappear. This solution is a far cry away from the trusted trio, but it's an interesting solution to the email problem that forces instant responses.